The version of The Well & The Lighthouse at the end of Miroir Noir is fucking amazing. It sounds like UNKLE, which is something I never ever thought I'd say about an Arcade Fire song. If I get around to it, I'm going to rip and upload it, this scary fairytale ambience needs to be heard.

I can't wait to see this when I get home from work and share your joy, MP. As cheesy as it sounds, I can point to one moment in my life when it all completely and utterly changed, and it had everything to do with Arcade Fire.

Thank you for your lovely, non-threatening AF joy parade, in which I will endlessly march.

I think a lot of people are going to find it dull, weird and aimless, so don't go in expecting something dramatically lifechanging this time. If you've seen the full 15 minute Takeaway Show, you know exactly what to expect. I don't want to overhype it for you, 'cause it's very much a film for a certain mood.

There's a montage at around the 48 minute mark which got the pulse racing though, I must say.

Pitchfork: Miroir Noir isn't a typical concert film. It doesn't capture a complete show or contain any sort of narrative, instead stringing together bits and pieces of performance and behind-the-scenes footage with all kinds of arty miscellany. Why did you choose to create the film this way?

Win Butler: I always find live shows on film kind of boring. Even my favorite ones, I kinda zone out for most of it. It's just so different seeing a band in the flesh and then watching a film of it, even if you have a hundred cameras and it's shot from every angle. There's just a communal, visceral thing that never translates very well. We were just trying to pick some bits of the live show. [Directors] Vincent Moon and Vincent Morisset were the only people really filming, so a lot of it was one-camera shoots, so the bits that were the most interesting are the ones we used.

Pitchfork: There are very few full songs in the film. Was that just the way the footage turned out?

WB: Not necessarily. That just wasn't what we were going for with the film. We were more into trying to capture a little bit of the energy. I find that if there are too many full performances, it doesn't really do that good a job of capturing the energy of the show.

Pitchfork: The film certainly captures that energy, but it can be frustrating when a song starts or stops in the middle.

WB: I know what you're saying. It just really wasn't what we were going for. I think, sometimes, it's better to be a little frustrated than to be bored.

Pitchfork: Miroir Noir features a lot of footage of the recording sessions for Neon Bible. Why did you include that in the film?

WB: There's a lot of home movies from when we were making the record. The parts, like, in the Rolling Stone documentaries, the only parts that I really like are the parts where you see a microphone in the background, and you're like "Ooh, that's where the microphone was." I'm kind of a nerd in that way, I guess. Those are the only moments I ever really find exciting.

Pitchfork: There are also quite a few voice-overs throughout the film-- these are voicemails left by people who called the Neon Bible promotional hotline 1-800-NEONBIBLE, right?

WB: Yeah. There were thousands and thousands of them. We checked the phone bill about six months in. It was pretty staggering, the amount we were paying.

Pitchfork: What are the extras on the deluxe edition of the Miroir Noir DVD? The press release mentioned that the DVD would include your "Friday Night With Jonathon Ross" and "Saturday Night Live" performances.

WB: Yeah. There's a BBC in-studio thing that we did with a bunch of full versions of songs that we shot at Maida Vale studio. The BBC always does a really good job, there's actual audio engineers. They actually really know what they're doing on the sound front. There's also this kind of infomercial thing that one of my good friends, Josh, made for us, that's pretty funny. It's kind of a video form of the 800 number. There's a longer clip of when [Arcade Fire multi-instrumentalists] Tim [Kingsbury] and and Richie [Reed Parry] went to "The Price Is Right". Our manager deserves a lot of credit for clearing that one. It blew my mind that he could actually get it cleared.

Pitchfork: So what's next for the Arcade Fire? We've heard you're working on a new album.

WB: Basically, the last five years have been pretty insane for the band. When we were recording [2004 debut album] Funeral, we didn't have a record deal or anything. We just kinda went in to make a 7" at the beginning. We recorded "Wake Up" and "Power Out" and the rest of it, we would kind of raise a bit of money and record. We never had a rehearsal schedule or anything, people would just come over to me and [Butler's wife and Arcade Fire co-founder] Régine's [Chassagne] house and we'd play in small groups and work on arrangements. I think our goal this year was to take enough time off that we would actually start playing together again because we were really dying to play together again. It's been pretty cool, the past couple months, the guys have been coming over to me and Régine's place. We have instruments in the living room, and we're just playing. It's a really exciting time. The first time you play a song is kind of the best part of the whole experience. It feels like a really natural process is happening.

I'm really relieved, because you get off the road after five years, and you're like, "Man, I don't want to play music anymore." But it's been really rewarding over the last couple months to not have to be like, "OK guys, we're gonna make a record, it's gonna take six months, we're recording in this studio." It's like, "We have no idea what we're doing, but I feel like playing with you this afternoon, so how about we have some tea and play songs for a little bit." I mean, I don't think any of us to spend three years making a record. But after the whole wild ride the last five years, I think it's been super healthy for us to just stay at home, tend our gardens, and actually have a real life. You can feel that in the music now. And fucking hell, what a crazy time to be living in. I think we're all really excited.

Pitchfork: Speaking of which, do you have any plans to perform at any Obama inauguration festivities?

WB: I don't know. There have been a couple emails going back and forth; I don't know if we have too many curse words in our lyrics or something. I'm not sure what's happening with it. We would obviously be totally stoked to play, but I'm sure there are a lot of political considerations. We were in Haiti about a month ago, Régine and I, which was a really mind-blowing experience. It was a couple days after the election. We were in Chicago for election night, and let me tell you, in rural Haiti, they were just as excited as in downtown Chicago.

Pitchfork: You contributed a song, "When Lenin Was Little", to the the forthcoming Red Hot benefit compilation Dark Was the Night. Is that a new song?

WB: No, that's actually the one song that didn't make it on Funeral that was recorded at that time, but it didn't really fit in with the rest of the songs.

Pitchfork: Are you working on anything else, besides the very beginnings of a new album?

WB: Not really. We finished that movie music, I'm not sure when the film's coming out, the Richard Kelly film, which was interesting.

Pitchfork: Wait a second! You did end up contributing music to The Box!?

WB: Yeah. So that will be out at some point.

Pitchfork: Did you write the entire score?

WB: Yes, me, Régine, and Owen [Pallett] from Final Fantasy. It's kind of Hitchcocky, movie, orchestral, Mellotron stuff. It's instrumental music. No songs. It's interesting. We didn't really think we were going to do the whole thing, and then it just kind of was easier once we got in. It was like, "Oh well, we'll just keep going." It has so much to do with the editing, and your job is just to help the director. It's a very different experience.

Pitchfork: What attracted you to this project?

WB: I could really imagine what he wanted for the music. It's based on a "Twilight Zone" episode set in the 70s. The guy works at NASA. It's got this kind of sci-fi, kind of Alfred Hitchcock feel. Those Hitchcock scores are some of my favorite movie music. We have a Mellotron, and since it's the 70s, it really seemed to fit. It was just really easy to imagine the type of music that would help the movie. It was a very ego-less project. The goal was to kind of bang some music out and not be, like, slitting our wrists over if the tambourine is too loud. That was a good experiment.

Pitchfork: "My Body Is a Cage" was recently featured in a commercial for the new movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Why did you agree to license the song for that?

WB: It was one of the fist things that's come down the pipe where... it didn't even really have that much to do with the movie, but just the trailer was very appropriate. Usually, people send us stuff, and if the song wasn't in there, it wouldn't really matter that much. It could really be anything. For this one, it makes sense. It's about a guy trapped in a wrong body...It was artistically done and it worked with the theme of the song. It wasn't a big deal. Everyone was like, "Yeah, it looks good." Most of the time, you get sent some commercial for something and it's just like, "Insert band here." It's not that interesting.

Pitchfork: Do you have anything else going on that you'd like people to know about?

WB: In the very short term, I have to go to the police department because someone broke into my car last night, smashed out the back window, and stole my iPod.

Good interview. Really looking forward to the soundtrack for The Box now. I kind of had reservations about how well Arcade Fire-ish music can be used to score something, but having seen what they did with Miroir Noir, I'm totally stoked about it. What they did with Well & The Lighthouse at the end was stunning.

I really, really have tried to like Arcade Fire. I have listened to both Funeral and Neon Bible on multiple occasions, and I just can't get into them. All I really want to do when I listen to Arcade Fire is to start listening to The National. I have no idea where this reaction comes from?

I hope that's not the last we hear of that track, neither, I want vocals, dammit.

So apparently there's a slight chance of AF-ish involvement in the Merge twentieth anniversary stuff. I'm dubious about them showing for the actual fest thing - at least not as "The Arcade Fire" - but they might surface for some of the related promo discs or whatever.